Most of the time a personal computer sits idle. However, with the advent of multimedia and realistic physics in games, the home use of computers is becoming more computationally intensive. With computationally intensive use, intermittent errors may occur more frequently. As hardware and software become more complicated intermittent hardware errors may become more difficult to diagnose.
In particular, faulty hardware is generally viewed as an annoyance: the computer crashes because of a few bits flipped randomly in memory. One may lose his or her work, but no intentional damage may be done. However, intermittent hardware errors may be exploited to circumvent security software. Moreover, as personal computers are used more and more for financial transactions, hardware system reliability is increasingly important.
Hardware errors, particularly intermittent hardware errors, though, can be difficult to diagnose. Memory errors typically increase with heat. For example, applying heat to computer memory may cause single-bit ECC errors. Some hardware testing methods apply a load to hardware components and look for error indications. Typically, the hardware components are stressed for a period of time and then the process checks for errors. This process may be repeated. But many such errors seem to occur during use and do not manifest themselves during traditional testing methods, especially when the electronic components cool down (e.g., due to stopping) and/or are not sufficiently stressed to cause hardware errors. Furthermore, sometimes when intermittent hardware errors are generated, these hardware errors may be quickly overwritten and go undetected.
A need therefore exists for an improved manner of detecting errors such as hardware errors in electronic components.